


call it what you want

by ivyrobinson



Series: call it what you want [1]
Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Bodyguard AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:33:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24205204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyrobinson/pseuds/ivyrobinson
Summary: it's 1917, dmitry finds himself as bodyguard to the tsar's youngest daughter after saving her from a kidnapping.
Relationships: Dimitri | Dmitry/Anya | Anastasia Romanov (Anastasia 1997 & Broadway)
Series: call it what you want [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1879195
Comments: 18
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

Dmitry Sudayev didn’t mean to save Anastasia Romanova’s life, but he did and it’s a mess. Protecting the imperial family is not anything he’s ever desired to do, and in fact lost his father due to a protest against them. 

“I don’t need a bodyguard,” she pouts to one of her older sisters one day, as he stands in the corner. He didn’t want to accept the offer of a job, but the money is good and it’s a lot of standing around doing nothing as they currently don’t let the youngest daughter out to do anything. The only other child more protected than her is her brother, Alexei. “It’s not my fault I was kidnapped and I shouldn’t be punished for it.” 

Olga arches an eyebrow in the way only an older sister can and says, “You snuck out when you weren’t supposed to, Nastya, now deal with the consequences.” 

Instead, she leaves in a huff, and he slowly follows her out the door. 

“Who are you protecting her from?” Alexei asks him directly one afternoon. The sisters pretend he isn’t there, but Alexei is a lonely child and has no such reservations. He talks to everyone. 

“Your sisters from killing her,” he responds dryly, making the child giggle. 

He straightens up and blends back into the wall when Anastasia’s attention snaps over to him. 

It’s not exactly a lie, the person Anastasia needs most protection from is herself. 

“You’re not very good at your job,” she complains one evening from her vanity. 

Dmitry humors her, “How so?”

She gets up from the vanity to stand, facing him. “I could overpower you.” 

“There’s flaws in your logic, Your Grace,” he points out, but steps back as she steps forward. “For starters, I was able to overpower the men who tried to take you, but you were not. Reason suggests I’d be able to overpower you.”

“But you wouldn’t,” she counters as the back of his knees hit the foot of her bed. She pushes him, and he allows himself to fall back. “And I hate when you call me Your Grace.”

“I know,” he smirks as she straddles his hips, and pins his wrists to the bed with her much smaller hands. He bites his lip against laughing at it. “Stasya.” 

“You’re not resisting,” Anastasia tells him as she lowers her lips to his. 

He captures her bottom lip with his teeth as she pulls away, “I think I’d be a fool if I tried.” 

She lets go of his wrists, and he brings his hands up to rest on her thighs, below where her nightgown has ridden up. “You don’t like me.” 

“Only on an intellectual level,” he says. If he were smart he’d have stayed far away from Anastasia after rescuing her. And would not have accepted this job, even if the pay was more than he could make on the street in half a year. And he would definitely be made to be put in this position with the youngest Princess. “The rest of me rebels against that.” 

She rocks against his hips, “I thought it was only one part of you that likes me.”

Dmitry laughs a bit bitterly, and he maneuvers them around so she’s under him now. “I could find the same for much less trouble if that were the case.” 

“Tell me about the other girls you’ve been with.” 

“No,” his answer is immediate. 

As is her pout, “Why not?” 

“You enjoy the stories too much,” he tells her. “And my sex life has not been that interesting.” 

Anastasia brings his mouth down to the open expanse of skin above the chest of her night gown. Her fingers play with the buttons of his shirt, opening them up. “Tell me a story I don’t already know.”

Dmitry sighs, because he has yet to prove himself able to deny her anything. “There was a girl once, Anya.” 

“And what of her?” 

“In the dark her hair was the color of pale moonlight,” he tells her. 

“You’re far too much of a romantic when you tell stories, Mitya,” she tells him, and he smiles against her neck. “Tell me what I want to hear.” 

“That’s a game I always lose,” he says, kissing along the freckles on her collarbone. “You look like the night sky.” 

“How so?”

“Very bright against all the dark,” he pulls back to shed the shirt she’s undone. 

Anastasia reaches up to pull her fingers through his hair, “You would make a very handsome soldier, I think.” 

“I would make a handsome anything,” he tells her, as he is vain and also knows all the strengths to survive in this life. “But I would be a terrible soldier. I can’t fight for something I don’t believe in.”

She sits up to pull her nightgown over her head, and he can’t bring himself to hate this weakness she inspires in him. 

“You already make a terrible bodyguard,” Anastasia tells him. “You can’t even protect me from my worst instincts.”

He laughs against the skin of her stomach. “Are you asking me to stop, Your Grace?” 

“No,” she says, “But you should know how to say no to me.” 

No one knows how to say no to Anastasia Romanova. Even when her parents and siblings say it to her, there’s no real force behind it and more often than not she ends up with exactly what she wanted. 

“And you’re a terrible thief,” she continues on. “I don’t think you’ve stolen one thing since you started here.” 

He lifts his eyes up to meet hers. 

“I’m not stolen,” she tells him. 

He presses his mouth against her sex and steals the ability for her to form coherent thought. 

“I was beginning to wonder if you’d ever pay me a compliment,” he teases after she unravels under him. 

She pulls him up for a kiss, and doesn’t give him the satisfaction of responding to that. 

“You’re so cheerful in the morning, it’s disgusting,” Tatiana complains as the girls sit in a drawing room working on their embroidery. 

Or pretending to. 

Maria has set hers aside in favor of the tea and snacks offered, and Anastasia hasn’t even touched hers. 

“Now, now Tania,” Olga scolds, not looking up from her own project. “We should cherish every moment Nastya isn’t in a temper.”

She manages to scowl at all of her sisters at once in return. 

Anastasia gets tipsy at the balls, stealing a champagne flute or several as she’s whisked around the ballroom. Dmitry’s job is to stand there and watch her make merry and make sure no one tries to make off with her. The ironic portion of his job, he supposes. 

She is exaggeratedly quiet as he walks her down the hall to her bedroom. She has taken her slippers off, tip toeing barefoot, silent laughter causing tremors to go through her body. Her skin is flushed and glowing and he hopes if nothing else to preserve this part of her. 

He leaves her at her door, but her hand snakes around his wrist and tugs him back before he can get too far. She throws her arms around him, hands locking behind his neck. He pulls her into her room before anyone sees. 

“There’s too many people still here,” he says into her hair, her hold strong against him. “I can’t stay.” 

She pouts and he kisses her, she tastes of strawberries and expensive champagne. “You’re supposed to protect me.” 

His hands grip her waist, “This isn’t protecting you.” 

“One of those men might get impatient with waiting for my sisters to marry and might try to steal me away for my dowry,” she tells him. 

“I don’t think they’d be after your dowry,” Dmitry tells her. 

“It’s my name and the power of my family are my most attractive features,” she tells him. 

Those are the things he finds ugliest about her. 

“You’re charming,” he tells her, though she is in a rather spoiled way. “And beautiful.” 

“Tania is beautiful,” she tells him. 

“Your sister is a slab of marble, coldly beautiful without any personality,” he says, and she makes a noise of protest against the insult to a beloved sister. “You,” his hands are on her, his mouth a breath away from her skin, he can’t help himself. “Are a living, breathing piece of art.” 

She lifts herself up to press her lips to his, forcibly taking his values and beliefs from him. 

“Fuck me,” she says when she pulls away, her nose nuzzling his. 

He cracks a smile at the petite princess and her foul demands. He can’t bring himself to laugh though. 

Anya turns her back to him, presenting the complicated connections holding it together. His fingers stumble undoing them. 

“You have a ladies maid, Stasya,” he reminds her. He hasn’t said yes, but he hasn’t been able to say no yet. 

The heavy ball gown falls to the floor, and he has to help lift her up to get her out of it. 

“None use their tongue on me quite like you do,” she teases. “Stop winding me up with romantic words and then pretend like you’re going to leave me.” 

“You’re going to get me killed,” he reminds her as she climbs on the bed in her shift. Her strawberry hair is in larger curls than normal tonight. 

Anya opens her legs, pulling the skirt of her shift up, “Am I worth it?” 

Dmitry crawls after her, pulling himself above her on the bed. He supposed that’s an answer of some sort. He thinks what it would look like if someone else were to walk in right now. Anastasia with her hair fanned around her, the white shift against her flushed skin, defiled by the anarchist's son. 

Looking down at her blue eyes, he says, “Yes.” 

She kisses him, her tongue in his mouth. Wonders what it means when he’s taught a Romanov princess how to kiss like this. When he pulls away, she pushes on his head, identifying the direction she wants him to take. 

“So impatient and bossy,” he murmurs, but drags his mouth down her chest. 

“I’ve been dancing all night in preparation of this,” she tells him, with a sigh. “You were supposed to get jealous.” 

He had been. 

“I wasn’t,” he lies, and his hands slide under her slip to stop her from squirming against him. “I knew you’d end up here.” 

“Liar,” she breathes. “I had half a mind to go off with a Duke.” 

“So go off with him,” he tells her. 

Anastasia drags his mouth back up to hers, “I don’t like you.” 

He laughs against her, they’re both lying. 

When Dmitry had saved Anastasia, she had not been Anastasia Romanov at the time. Or he hadn’t realized it until long after. She was not dressed like one, having snuck out. He’s come to learn she’s reckless and impatient for that which she cannot have. 

The idiots who tried to kidnap her, however, had realized it and while she did a valiant attempt at defending herself, she did require an assist. And then she had lied about who she was to him.

And it’s not only how he ended up accepting a post he never should’ve, but also how he ended up so tangled with someone beyond his reach. 

She kisses the dimple along his jaw before resting her head against his shoulder, “You’re handsome in a terrible way.” 

Dmitry releases something between a laugh and a breath, “Your compliments sound like insults.”

“My insults sound like compliments,” she corrects him, settling her hand on his stomach. 

“Forgive me,” he says. “Is that why you lied to me about who you were?” 

“I wanted a few more hours of freedom,” she tells him, though she was continuously greedy for that. Even when locked back up in the Palace. 

“Even when the first few hours prior to that had almost gotten you killed?” 

“Almost got me ransomed,” she nitpicks. “My father would’ve paid and I’d have been returned.” It’s terribly naive of her to assume that. Then she admits, “I wanted to see if I could get you to kiss me.”

She had and much more than that, too. 

“You kissed me,” he points out, playing with the ends of her hair. 

Anastasia sighs, “You took too long. I’m forever being told that men who are and are not gentlemen will make improper advances without the proper chaperones in place. All that time alone, and nothing.” 

“I’m broken,” he tells her drily. 

“Clearly. Did you truly hate me when you found out who I was?” 

“Yes,” he says. He actually hated himself. She lets out an offended gasp. “No, I’ve never hated you.” 

She lifts herself up on her elbow, her hair brushing against his arms. Her eyes narrow down at him, his words forever careless around her, “Have we met before?” 

“This very moment?” Dmitry evades. “Many times, I’m forced to see you every day.” 

“We have,” Anastasia insists. “Where and how?” 

“We haven’t,” he tells her, and then sighs. “I saw you once before. At a parade.” 

“A parade?” She’s delighted. “Which one?” 

He runs his free hand through his hair, “I don’t know.” 

That’s not good enough for her and he hates this memory. It feels like a betrayal of his father’s ideals. Or at least the first one, given he now works for the Tsar in some capacity. 

“When?” 

Dmitry rolls his eyes up, “It was like eight or nine years ago. I was ten. It was June.” 

“Oh,” she says the word slowly, as though this means anything at all to her. “You were the boy that bowed!” 

Dmitry’s hand stills in her hair, “You remember that?” 

“I remember that,” she seems oblivious to the level of stunned he’s currently feeling. She kisses his lips and he doesn’t quite remember how to kiss her back. “It was thrilling, no one has bowed to just me before then. Or since.” 

He regains his ability to move, pulling her towards him to kiss her. She makes a delighted squeak against his mouth. His hand against her waist, already knowing he’s going to do something stupid like fall in love with her.


	2. Chapter 2

__

Dmitry’s father had a savior complex, and it got him killed and left Dmitry all alone in the world long before he was a man. Dmitry, as a result, tries to keep out of others business and help only himself. One explains how he ends up saving a pretty strawberry blonde from several sketchy men who have her bound and trying to make off with her. 

She seems more annoyed than scared once freed from their hold. As though she were at a tea party and the men were inconveniencing her from eating her scones. 

She eyes the distant spot of her rescue warily. The gag is loose around her neck. “Aren’t you going to report them to the authorities?” 

Dmitry snorts, “Why would I?”

The girl lets out an offended gasp, as the rope falls from her wrists, “They tried to kidnap me.” 

“I saw,” he reminds her, pulling the gag up and off her. “What good will the authorities do?” 

She blinks as though she’s never heard of anyone question authority in her presence before. It may be true. He’s an anarchist’s son, and has grown up knowing he has to question it. “Arrest them!” 

Dmitry laughs, “By all means, go find the authorities then. I don’t go to them for anything.” 

She goes quiet at that, not wanting to be the one to do it. He eyes her speculatively, wondering what she’s running from. 

“Why were they kidnapping you?” He asks instead. 

He has his own speculation. Her clothes are fine, not overly so but definitely better than anything he’s seen on the street. It’s most likely something to do with money

Most things have to do with money. 

She stretched her arms out, and he thinks she’s too trusting of a guy she doesn’t know even after an attempted kidnapping. 

“Because I am so beautiful,” she says, her tone teasing.

She is, though. 

The girl sighs, “They didn’t consult with me before grabbing me.”

Fair enough. “Your name?” 

She hesitates before offering. “Anya. You?”

“Dmitry,” he says, it’s a common enough name he’s never had to think to hide it. “Where do you need to be returned to?” 

It was one thing to save a pretty girl from kidnapping, it’s another to dawdle with her. 

Her blue eyes hold a wild, slightly frightened look and he knows he’s not leaving her anytime soon. “Nowhere yet.” 

Dmitry holds out his hand, and places hers in it and let’s her lead him to his room. 

-

“What do you do?” Anya asks, taking his bed for her seat. The only other option is a lone chair by a small table. 

His room isn’t good for much other than sleeping. 

It’s still better than what others have. 

“Nothing officially,” he says, taking a seat on the floor below her. “I’m a ghost.” 

There’s a list of the dead somewhere with his name on it. The best way to stay out of the eye or the government is to not exist at all. 

She seems to consider him, filing him away in some category in her brain. “You’re a very handsome ghost.” 

“I was literally killed for these good looks,” he tells her and she smiles. 

When she smiles she seems familiar, like some distant tucked away memory. 

“You know you’re handsome,” Anya tells him, as a statement. 

Dmitry laughs, “Always good to know your strengths to play up.” 

Anya reaches down, fingers brushing against his hair. He can’t remember the last time someone did such a small, intimate gesture to him. 

“That makes you sound like a prostitute,” she tells him, her finger tracing along his jaw. Anya pulls away slightly, “You’re not, are you?” 

“No,” he says. “Who could afford this?” 

She snorts, “You’re not that handsome.”

“It’s too late to take it back,” Dmitry tells her. “I know of your true attraction to me.” 

Anya shrugs, unbothered, her hand moves to the back of his neck and she leans down, “Are you a good kisser?” 

“Only one way to find out,” he responds right before their lips meet. 

Her kiss is softer and more hesitant than she’s been all day, and he lets her lead. 

“You’re okay,” she proclaims when she pulls away, her thumb brushing over his lower lip. Anya dips down and kisses him again, more assertive this time. 

“And yet you keep kissing me,” Dmitry points out, teasing. 

Anya nods, her nose brushing against his skin because she’s still so close to him. “Practice makes perfect.” 

He laughs against her mouth. 

-

“My grandmother lives in Paris,” Anastasia tells him one night, kneeling on the hard cot that has been given to him as a bed. 

She’s discovered the secret passage between their room, meant to give him access in a case of emergency and definitely not meant for after hour designations between the two of them. And why he hadn’t mentioned it to her.

She’s tenacious and can discover any secret she so chooses. There’s plenty of evidence already of that. 

“Mine is buried underground,” he says, conversationally. 

She sighs, whenever he doesn’t follow the conversation she’s decided they’ve had in her head. “I would love to live in Paris one day.” 

“I don’t think the French have Princes anymore for you to marry,” he says.

She’s stolen one of his shirts to wear and is drowning in it. 

“I don’t need a prince,” she tells him, her fingers playing with the ends of his hair. 

She needs something more than who he is though. 

Dmitry doesn’t want to ruin the mood. The quiet intimacy of the evening. Instead he tugs on her rest, bringing her down to rest against his side. 

“You’re a Grand Duchess, Stasya,” he tells her. “You don’t need anyone.” 

She tilts her chin up, “That is correct.” She kisses his cheek, her hand splayed on his bare chest. “But there’s so much I want.” 

So does he, he’s finding. 

-

Anastasia finds herself daydreaming more often than not. It’s this habit of hers that more often than not lands her in situations she should not be. Whether it’s sneaking out of the palace (something she used to multiple times and only was kidnapped once but apparently it’s only that one time counts in everyone’s mind), kissing strange boys her save her life (okay, again only once but it counted a lot in her own mind) or becoming so foolishly infatuated with a boy that’s not allowed. 

She’s in the library with her sisters. She’s reading a book, but really allowing her mind to wander. It’s difficult to focus when Dmitry is so near and she’s supposed to pretend to ignore him. 

It’s difficult to focus when he’s near and she’s free to give him her undivided attention. His fingers ghosting down her spine as she attempts to read in bed, his lips pressed against her hair. 

“I want to go for a walk,” she announces suddenly, snapping her book shut and causing Tatiana to start. 

Anastasia can see without looking the annoyed look on Dmitry’s face. He thinks she gets into trouble whenever she leaves the bosom of her family. He’s not wrong, but she gets up to trouble with him so she hardly understands his complaint. 

“Alone,” she announces as soon as Dmitry takes a step to follow her. This helps keep up the idea she’s annoyed by having a bodyguard (which she is, but she enjoys the easy access to Dmitry far more than her annoyance) and so her sisters won’t try to join her. 

“You have to take Dmitry with you,” Olga says in a tired tone of a sister who spends more time mothering than she does as a friend. 

“I don’t have to do anything,” she announces and Maria snorts. “It’s just our gardens, we have guards everywhere.” 

Olga looks up from her book at her, “Just our gardens is what you said last time and you nearly got ransomed.” 

Anastasia leaves in a huff and she can hear Dmitry’s footsteps behind her. 

The gardens are empty and she turns into the maze. It’s not much of a maze anymore, her and Maria has figured it out years ago, back when they were eleven or so. But the eye of it is quiet and lovely. 

She likes to think of leaving past these garden walls one day and just keep going, uninterrupted. She loves Russia, but it constricts her so. 

“You’re just going to ignore me?” She questions after several moments of quiet solitude on the bench. 

“I never ignore you,” Dmitry responds, but doesn’t leave his current post of the entryway. “You make it impossible to.” 

“You’re supposed to say you’re too taken with my beauty you can’t ignore me,” she pouts. 

“That’s what I mean,” he tells her. “Stop fishing for compliments, Stasya.” 

“I’m a Princess,” Anastasia reminds him. “Though it means nothing, I’m not even an heir. Just a girl who can’t be the heir of the heir of the heir of the heir of the heir because men have feared us since Catherine.” 

“Ah history lessons,” he says and she scowls. 

“I’ll have you assassinated,” she says. “Anyway, I’m just saying I’m a princess so I need compliments.” 

“I think you’d need them even if you were a pauper,” Dmitry points out. 

“Would you shower me with them if I were?” 

This was the most dangerous game of what if they played. 

“Yes,” his answer is instantaneous. “Much more than I do now.”

“I’ll become a pauper for you,” she proclaims and he shakes his head. 

“You’re too idealistic,” Dmitry tells her, and he hasn’t stepped a foot closer to her since they reached the center of the maze. 

“All I do is try to escape here,” she points out. “It’s just walls and walls and then I’ll be shipped off to some foreign land with a man I hate. If anyone will take me, the people aren’t kind to us.” 

“You’d miss your family,” Dmitry reminds her, and she supposes he’s right. But she’d miss them just as much as the wife of some Duke in Austria or wherever. 

“You would be my family,” she decides. “And mine would forgive me eventually.” 

He arches an eyebrow at that, but doesn’t call her too idealistic. She can feel it. 

“You would grow to hate me,” he says softly. 

Anastasia sighs, not fully committed to arguing about it at the moment. “Why don’t you come over here? No one can see us.” 

Dmitry’s gaze flickers upwards, “They can from the roofs.” 

She looks up, never having noticed the guards before. This is what she meant before, she only wanted to be free of the constant supervision. “I wanted to kiss you amongst the flowers.” She gets up to pluck some for later. 

She could compromise and adjust. 

He doesn’t respond to that and she hates when he thinks too hard. 

“Would you ever leave Russia?” Anastasia asks him. 

“Yes,” Dmitry answers after a pause. “When there’s nothing left for me here.” 

“So maudlin,” she sighs, standing up. “I’ve twisted my ankle, you’ll need to carry me back.” 

Finally, he steps forward. “That must have been some nasty stand up from the bench.” But he picks her up anyway. 

She clutches the flowers she’s picked “I do so much work to get you alone, and yet never get a thank you.” 

He lets out a laugh, and whispers close to her ear, “I’ll thank you when we get back.” 

Anastasia brings the flowers to her face to hide her smile. 

-

Dmitry never sleeps heavily so the moment Anastasia sneaks into his room, he is very aware. He waits for her to approach him before rolling over in his bed. He goes to speak, but she covers his mouth with her small hand. 

“What’re you doin?” His question is muffled, but he’s certain she understands what he’s asking. 

Her voice is a whisper, “Coming full circle.” Anastasia tugs on his wrist with her free hand. “I’m kidnapping you.” 

“It’s only full circle if I had been the one to kidnap you,” he says after he moves his head slightly so he can speak clearly. 

“Either way,” she dismisses, still not explaining things. 

“Why are you kidnapping me?” He’s not certain still if he should be amused or concerned. 

“I don’t want to marry some royal or some stranger,” she tells him. “I want to be with you and that’ll never happen here.” 

“You don’t want to run away with me,” Dmitry tells her. He’s stayed too long and never should have taken this job. “Stasya, you’ll be miserable.” 

“I know my own feelings,” she argues. “Stop trying to tell me what I will or will not be. I’m miserable here. My parents will marry us all off for the good of Russia, and as much I love my family, I want one of my own choosing.” 

Princesses didn’t, couldn’t, choose him. 

But it’s something he wants too much to not ask, “What’s your plan?” 

“My grandmother lives in Paris,” she tells him. “We get married and go to her.” 

“You think the dowager Empress of Russia will accept you leaving your family to marry a nobody and help you with this?”

“I think she loves me and would do anything for me,” she says simply. 

He loves her and would do anything for her but has seen too much of her family’s own cruelty- casual or otherwise to believe they would be at peace with any of this. 

“And if she doesn’t?” Dmitry asks her, “Or has me arrested or killed on sight?” 

She reaches out to cup his cheek, “Leave with me, marry me and we can make a plan as we go along.” 

She’s offering him everything he’s never dared to want, and this sort of survival is the kind he’s thrived in. 

He can’t bring her into the sort of life he’s known. 

She leans down and kisses him and he can’t bring himself to pull away. 

“I leave with or without you,” she decides. “It’s awfully negligent towards your duties as my bodyguard if you let me try to go to Paris on my own.” 

Dmitry knows her and knows her stubbornness as well as her recklessness. “When did you want to leave?” 

She smiles, a burst of sun in the dead of the night, and he knows the rest of his life is dedicated to keeping the sunshine in her. “Thirty minutes and the guards change.” 

“Have you been studying the changing of the guards?” He asks her as she pulls away. 

“Of course,” she says, simply. “I’ve known I was going to run away with you the moment you brought me to your apartment.” 

Dmitry can’t help himself but picks her up to twirl her around and she throws her arms around him. 

“You win,” he gives into her fully. 

“I really do,” she tells him, ready to pull them to their future.


End file.
